


Atonement

by till_owlyglass



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe, Classism, Homophobia, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Smut, based more on the film than the novel, mentions of child rape
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-16
Updated: 2014-07-24
Packaged: 2018-01-01 16:52:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1046243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/till_owlyglass/pseuds/till_owlyglass
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Whilst staying at his wealthy uncle's house for the summer, thirteen-year-old Eren Yeager witnesses a tryst between his cousin Jean Kirschstein and the gardener's son, Marco Bodt. By the end of the evening a hideous crime will have been committed, a lie will have been told, lives will be changed forever, and Eren will be left spending the rest of his life trying to atone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Preface

Down some cold field in a world outspoken   
the young men are walking together, slim and tall,   
and though they laugh to one another, silence is not broken;   
there is no sound however clear they call.   
  
They are speaking together of what they loved in vain here,  
but the air is too thin to carry the things they say.   
They were young and golden, but they came on pain here,   
and their youth is age now, their gold is grey.   
  
Yet their hearts are not changed, and they cry to one another,   
'What have they done with the lives we laid aside?   
Are they young with our youth, gold with our gold, my brother?   
Do they smile in the face of death, because we died?'   
  
Down some cold field in a world uncharted   
the young seek each other with questioning eyes.   
They question each other, the young, the golden hearted,   
of the world that they were robbed of in their quiet paradise.

**-The Soldier by Humbert Wolfe**

* * *

The nurse shows the scribe into the library where the old man is waiting for him, settled in an oversized armchair beside a roaring fire.

“Sir,” the scribe says, snapping to attention with his right fist over his heart, “It is an honour to be here.”

“Now, now, you needn’t be so formal.” the old man laughs, waving dismissively. Though, if the sly twinkle in his green eyes is anything to go by, the scribe would say that he actually quite enjoyed the attention.

“Welcome.” the man says, extending a hand for him to shake, “There’s a table in the corner which you may pull up to work on.”

“Thank you, sir.” the fair haired young man responds, placing his satchel upon the chair on the other side of the fire and removing his cloak. It makes a soft, almost inaudible _swooshing_ sound as he swings it from his shoulders.

“My, that brings back memories!” the old man reaches forward to touch the green material, rubbing it between his fingers and thumb, “And I see that the uniform hasn’t changed much since I last wore it.” he observes.

The scribe carries the little table over from the corner and seats himself in front of it. From his satchel he takes the tools of his trade and begins to arrange them on the table; a thick stack of white paper, two bottles of ink, a couple of quills and a sharp knife to cut them with, a blotter.

“You don’t wear the belts though. Why is that?”

“I was injured on my third expedition beyond the Wall. My gear malfunctioned and I fell from a tree and broke my right leg.”

“I noticed that you favour your left leg a little when walking.”

“The rehabilitation process was long and in the end it soon became apparent that I could no longer effectively use the gear. I was top of my class when it came to academic scores so the Legion gave me a desk job instead. I am now apprentice to Captain Beckett.”

“You were here with Beckett some years ago, weren’t you?”

“Yes! We were here to interview you about your time working with the great Corporal Levi!” the young man grins, thrilled at having been remembered.

“ _‘The great Corporal Levi’_? You know, he’d be so angry to hear you say that. He simply hated being hero-worshiped.”

“But he was hailed as humanity’s strongest soldier.” the young man protests.

“ _‘Humanity’s strongest soldier’_ was a 5 foot 4 clean-freak with a penchant for toilet humour.” the old man smiles, eyes sparkling again, “Does that shatter your illusions? It certainly did mine when I first met him.”

The scribe doesn’t know what to say to that.

“Well then,” the old man continues, “Now you’re here again. Only this time you’ve come to write about the one they once called _‘humanity’s greatest hope’_?”

“Yes, sir. I hoped that we might begin with what caused you to join the military.”

The smile falls abruptly from the old man’s face. The sparkle in his eyes disappears and his expression becomes somewhat pained. The scribe could swear that he literally felt the entire atmosphere of the room drop several degrees colder, despite the fact he was still seated beside the vast open fire. The young man begins to panic, fearing he has said something wrong.

The old man slowly lets out a heavy sigh, “Well. I suppose it is about time I told my story, it’s been long overdue.” he murmurs, more to himself than the young man opposite, “Why not tell it to you? You seem like a nice young fellow. Why not you?”

It dawns on the scribe that he is about to hear something very significant, something kept secret for many years and, as the one charged with the task of recording the old man’s memoirs, it is vital that he gets down every word perfectly. He is, after all, writing history. The young man scrambles to open a bottle of ink and for a quill to dip in it.

“I’ll have to go back some years to an event which was the catalyst for my ultimate decision to join the military. I’ll have to tell you of when I was thirteen years old and of an incident which came to shape the rest of my life. Is that okay?” the old man seems resigned and weary.

The scribe nods, his quill, the nib slick with black ink, hovering over a blank piece of paper.

 


	2. Summer 844 (part 1)

After breakfast Eren was given strict orders by the housekeeper Mrs. Müller to stay out of the way of the house staff so as not to cause them any trouble. He grudgingly noted that Mikasa had been given no such instructions, but then Mikasa had not successfully managed to anger the housekeeper, the cook and the scullery maids on her first day there (and by extension the rest of the staff too).

Really, he was not to blame in the slightest, it wasn’t his fault that the light lunch of sandwiches and salad which had been provided on their arrival had done nothing to sate his appetite and he had been forced, stomach growling, to seek out the kitchens to ask for more food. It really wasn’t his fault at all that, due to the hustle and bustle of rushing to prepare the evening meal, the kitchen staff had not noticed the presence of the shy boy loitering in the doorway, nor heard his squeaking demands for attention, and he had instead took it upon himself to wander into the larder and feed himself. And he certainly couldn’t be blamed for the fact that, in reaching up to a basket of fruit on a high shelf, he had knocked a large ceramic bowl onto the floor where it had broken and spilled its contents, the resulting shatter loud enough to bring silence to the hot and noisy kitchen beyond. When the cook Mrs. Josef found him, his feet buried up to his ankles in a pile of white crystals, she had launched into a frightening tirade in which she had even went so far as to assert that the ruined sugar had been worth more than _him_. And all throughout his humiliating dressing-down the kitchen maids had gone about their business, occasionally shooting him sly disapproving glances.

And to make things even worse, that night he’d dreamed of his mother on her death bed, and had woke tangled in soaking wet sheets and had been forced to seek out his aunt who had in turn sent for a maid to be woken to deal with the mess. The maid had come from her bed, wearing a dressing gown over her nightdress, and had stripped the sodden sheets and replaced them with fresh, grumbling all the while about a boy his age wetting the bed and how she’d make him wash the sheets himself if she could.

From his bedroom window Eren watched Mikasa in the swimming pool below. It annoyed him that she could be so carefree, that she could swim lengths and jump off the diving board and enjoy the luxury of cool water on a hot day. After all, it wasn’t _her_ mother who had died, he thought spitefully, then immediately felt guilty. He reminded himself that Mikasa had already gone through the pain and trauma of losing _both_ of her parents and it was cruel and unfair to assume that she felt no grief over the death of Carla Yeager.

Initially he had thought that his adoptive sister would have been sympathetic to his plight, being already familiar with his situation. But it was not so, for Mikasa remained just as distant and reticent as she had been with him since that day three months ago when she had woken up with blood staining her bed sheets and Eren’s mother had taken her aside to tell her of “flowering” and the “coming of womanhood”, as Mikasa had told him later that evening, the two of them curled in his bed with the sheets pulled over their heads. Since then much had changed, not only had Mikasa stopped coming to lie for a few hours in his bed every night, but now she barely said two words to him with each passing day, electing instead for solitude or occasionally the company of women; she also grew noticeably a few inches taller than him and her cheeks lost most of their childish baby fat - or rather, it found a new home on her chest. Mere weeks after Mikasa embarked on her journey into womanhood, Eren’s mother fell ill and took to her bed with a sickness that not even his father could cure, and two days after her death the ill-fated adoptive siblings were sent by Grisha to stay the summer with Carla’s sister and her husband at their estate in the Sina countryside.

Eren watched Mikasa somersault once more into the pool then pushed away from the window with a petulant sound. He flounced out of the pokey second-floor bedroom, with its faded powder-blue wallpaper, turned right and walked along the corridor to the grand staircase which he descended to the entrance hall, a chessboard of black and white tiles currently being polished by a maid on all fours. The woman offered up an irritated huff as he walked straight down the middle, leaving gummy footprints in his wake on his journey to the high-ceilinged drawing room where he stepped through the open French windows out into the brightness of the day.

It was not yet even midday and already the sun was high and almost unbearably hot. Eren buried his hands into the pockets of his shorts and crossed the terrace, hopping down the three crumbling steps out of the shadow of the house and onto the gravel path below which veered off left and right to border the long expanse of manicured lawn before him. He paused for a moment and wondered which way to go, swinging his head left and right, left and right; the former would take him through the tidy hedges and the neat rows of flowerbeds of the formal gardens and eventually around to the front of the house and the gates of the estate; while the latter would lead him through to land less regimented and cared for, down to the back of the estate where the wild had been allowed to take over and an abandoned summerhouse stood nestled against the edge of the forest. He finally made up his mind and took the left path, his logic being that because it would ultimately take him a little closer to the tenants’ cottages, he would probably find whom he was searching for quicker.

He kicked gravel up as he walked, scuffing his shoes for the next time one of the hall boys would have to polish them, and reflected humourlessly on how, having grown up all his life where his father had set up his surgery on the edge of the slums of Shiganshina, he had actually been somewhat excited to spend his first summer in the country, how he had imagined having all sorts of adventures exploring his uncle’s expansive estate. His delusion had been short lived though, the wild and picturesque charm of the place had quickly worn off and his boredom had set in when it soon became apparent that he was expected to entertain himself. His Uncle Louis was away most days in the capital city, paying visits to military personnel and nobility alike as he “ensured that the politics of their great nation ran smoothly” - or so he said, Eren got the impression that his days were mostly spent paying one social call after another and being treated to good food and fine wine at the expense of each host. His Aunt Delphine was somewhere nearby, probably floating listlessly about the house in a fine summer frock of thin pale silk, either that or upstairs in her darkened bedroom, nursing a migraine - the hot weather did not agree with her she had told him and Mikasa over the light and unfilling lunch the day of their arrival, served on the shady terrace.

It was unsurprising then, that after being bullied and shunned by the cruel house staff, all but ignored by his aunt and uncle, and then abandoned by the suddenly introverted Mikasa, that poor lonely Eren had made friends with the first person to actually show him any kindness since his arrival: the gardener’s son, Marco Bodt.

Eren had stumbled upon him one day while he had stomped sulkily about the grounds - literally, after vaulting over a low stone wall and landing on top of Marco who had been crouching on the other side planting some flowers. At first Eren had flinched away, half expecting the stranger to scold him or even cuff him about the head (as one of the stable hands had done the previous day after he had tried to say hello to the horses and gotten in the way of the man’s work) but the freckled young man had instead laughed, asked Eren his name and had turned out to be not at all displeased that the boy’s clumsiness had resulted in some crushed Peonies. And Eren had ended up sitting on the wall and talking to Marco while he worked, telling him of his mother’s death and of all the cruelties and indignities he had suffered since arriving. In return he had received sympathy and Marco had even shared half of his lunch with him when he had stopped to take a break (half a sandwich and an orange each). It quickly became an almost daily occurrence for Eren to go traipsing through the gardens in search of his new acquaintance, for Marco was caring and funny and generous and he too had lost his mother at a young age and was raised by his father. And as their friendship cemented, Marco began to make a habit of spending time with him when his work was finished; one day he took him swimming in the river which snaked through the Kirschstein lands and taught him how to bait a line and catch a fish; another day he showed him some old tumbled-down ruins hidden away in the forest, and had played a game of pretend knights with the boy, taking on the roles of an evil foe to be duelled, a dragon for Eren to slay and a damsel for him to rescue.

Eren found the kindly gardener’s boy tinkering with an old fountain which stood half-forgotten amongst the tall hedges of the orderly gardens.

“Hello, Marco.” he said, hoisting himself up to sit cross-legged on the rim of the fountain’s basin.

“Oh, hello, Eren.” the freckled boy responded, sounding genuinely pleased to see him. He was leaning over the parapet and pulling handfuls of moss up from below the surface of the water and dropping them into a sack at his feet to be disposed of.

“The water pressure is not quite right, see?” he explained, straightening up and gesturing to the top of the fountain where the water, which should have been shooting up in a proud jet from the mouth of statue which crouched there, a stone likeness of a woman with flowing hair and robes, was instead listlessly trickling back over her face and body, over the green stains it had created after following the same path for decades.

“I’ve tried clearing the moss which accumulated at the bottom of the basin,” Marco continued, wiping his hands on the cloth always kept tucked in his belt, “But short of climbing into the fountain myself and taking it apart, there isn’t much I can do.”

“I’ve been banished from the house again.” Eren said glumly, hoping he sounded suitably pitiful that Marco would feel compelled to spend the rest of the day entertaining him.

“Oh? And why is that?” the young man asked, as he crouched down and began to gather up stray handfuls of slimy moss which hadn’t quite made it into the sack. From where he was sitting slightly above him, Eren could see little beads of sweat forming on the tanned and freckled skin at the back of Marco’s neck. Sweat had also soaked through the back of his pale blue shirt, a triangle upon his broad shoulders pointing downwards to his trim waist. It really was an awful day to be working outside.

“My cousins are coming home today and the staff needs to prepare for their arrival.”

Eren was almost positive that for a moment, for a mere split-second, Marco paused - no, was struck frozen. But then he was back continuing with his work and saying in a voice which betrayed no emotion whatsoever, “Is that so?”

“Yes. Alain is bringing some high ranking military officials with him to dinner. And Jean is supposedly going to stay home for good now that term is over.”

“Are you excited to see them?”

Eren pulled a face, “I haven’t seen Jean in almost four years, and I can’t even remember the last time I saw Alain. He’s a member of the Military Police so he’s been living in the capital guarding the King. Do you know my cousins well?”

“Alain not so well. He was already my age when my father became gardener and we came to live here, so he’d already went away to join the military. But I practically grew up with Jean. He saw me from a window helping my father,” Marco nodded up to where an uppermost corner of the house was visible over the high hedge, one solitary window overlooked them and Eren realised it was the old nursery (not that he’d spent any great deal of time there, he had, after all, long outgrown nurseries and toys), “Seemingly Jean went straight to his mother and demanded that the boy in the gardens was brought in to play with him.” Marco continued, laughing, “And I was, because Jean always got his own way. And we ended up playing together for ten years. Until he went away to school three years ago, that is.”

Eren now looked at the gardener’s boy with something akin to newfound respect; for ten years he had no doubt been given free run of the vast house due to his privileged status as friend and playmate of Jean, the young master. Marco was probably considered more like family than Eren and Mikasa, the distant cousins visiting from the slums.

“Are you excited to see Jean?” he asked, turning Marco’s question back around onto him.

Marco gazed thoughtfully up at the house, a very long silence stretched, “Yes, I think I am.” he answered finally, “But whether _he_ will be excited to see _me_ is another matter entirely.”

**XXX**

It was Jean who arrived first, disembarking from a carriage shortly before midday with a thunderous expression. When one of the housemaids delivered the news that from an upstairs window she had spotted a carriage entering the gates to the estate, Eren’s aunt had forced him and Mikasa to stand with her outside the front door, ready to welcome their cousin home.

“Mother.” he said in monotone greeting when Delphine Kirschstein stepped forward and embraced him.

“Oh my darling boy, I’ve missed you so. How was your journey?” she gushed, teetering on her tiptoes with her arms flung over his shoulders.

“Unpleasant.” Over his aunt’s shoulder Eren could just see his cousin’s face, his expression somewhat discomforted at being held for so long, “I had to get up early this morning to pack my things so as to be ready for the carriage leaving. The ride was too long and bumpy and the driver only allowed us two brief stops. Really, the day is far too hot to be travelling such a distance! So now I’m tired and I ache all over. Also, all I had for breakfast this morning was a slice of toast so I’m bloody starving.”

“Lunch will be served soon. Or perhaps you’d like to bathe before?”

Jean shrugged, muttering something unintelligible before the two finally broke apart.

It was at that moment that Jean seemed to notice his cousins loitering nearby, “Who’s this?” he questioned, squinting down at Eren who tried very hard not to glower right back.

“Eren and Mikasa of course! I did write to tell you they’d be staying with us, remember?”

“Oh. I’m very sorry about your mother.” Jean said awkwardly.

Eren thought that he didn’t sound sorry in the slightest, but then, he’d already decided that he disliked his cousin very much after having just spent several minutes watching him scowl and complain like a petulant child.

Eren, Mikasa and their Aunt Delphine retired to the terrace where lunch was once again served in the shade beneath the arbour laden with flowering lilac. Jean joined them a while later having bathed and changed from his school uniform, severely tailored with a high collar and tight cravat, into a cream Summer suit with a loose fitting linen shirt. The opportunity to refresh himself seemed to have done little to improve his mood, however, for Jean remained just as sour faced as before.

A lunch of grilled chicken and fresh vegetables was served, which Eren pushed idly around his plate as he was grudgingly forced to listen to his cousin complain about what seemed to be every single minute event and occurrence he had experienced over the previous three years of his life.

“Not hungry, sweetheart?” his aunt asked during a lull in Jean’s incessant griping.

“Not really.” Eren responded, not bothering to look up from his plate where he was currently impaling his green beans one-by-one on his fork, “I’d rather be with Marco.”

Jean’s cutlery, which was in the process of being put to use cutting his chicken, stilled, “Marco? Is he still here?” the older boy blurted, obviously surprised.

“Oh yes, he’s still here living with his father. He earned a scholarship to the private school in town - used to ride his bicycle all the way there and back during term. Now it’s the Summer, though, he’s back home during the days and back to working in the gardens. He has his final exams in a month or two so he’s often been coming up to the house to study in the library.” Delphine Kirschstein explained, sipping from her glass of water, brimming with cubes of ice and slices of lemon, as she carelessly swatted a persistent fly away from her plate.

“The private school in town? That’s good.” Jean said neutrally, remembering to resume cutting his food.

“He says he wants to get into politics once he graduates, to serve the King. So your father is going to see about pulling a few strings to get one of the King’s advisors to perhaps take him on as an aide.”

“Impressive. You and father seem to have quite a hand in his education and future career. Hoping that it will be profitable for you in the future? To have in your debt a man who may someday have the King’s ear?”

“Now, Jean, really! Not everything in life is a political chess game! Marco Bodt is a fine young man who has been close to our family for years. You used to be thick as thieves the pair of you. And what now? Will you resume your friendship?”

If Eren didn’t know any better, he’d say that Jean had blushed pink from the tips of his ears to the back of his neck - but no, surely it was just the heat of the day.

“Three years is a long time, mother.” Jean muttered before standing up and excusing himself, effectively putting an end to the conversation.

**XXX**

After the lunch plates were cleared Eren’s aunt left to check on the preparations for the dinner that evening, she was followed wordlessly by Mikasa, who did not spare so much as a glance at Eren.

Furious, he went once again storming through the gardens to find Marco, to demand that the older boy take him swimming in the river, his logic being that if he swam out of his depth and drowned then that would be everyone’s punishment for ignoring him.

But Eren couldn’t find Marco, despite even going so far as to walk down to the cottage where he lived with his father and receive no reply when he rapped continuously on the door for a solid minute. And so, in an even worse mood than before, Eren returned to the house and went upstairs to the nursery, slamming the door behind him.

The room was large and airy, the walls covered with pale yellow paper printed with a repetitive blue flower motif which, if stared at for a long time, would ingrain itself temporarily on the backs of Eren’s eyelids when he closed them. However, as was the case with many of the lesser used rooms in the house, the paper was faded and out of fashion, and in this particular room it was also defaced with childish scrawls from crayons. The nursery had been the playroom to generations of Kirschsteins and home to countless toys and games, many of which were still there and in good condition, albeit a little dusty.

In his rage, Eren grabbed the first thing on hand, which turned out to be a slightly moth-eaten old teddy bear, and hurled it with all his might across the room. The bear hit the wall and fell to the floor, landing facing him on its side, it regarded him with large glassy black eyes which suddenly seemed a little reproachful and its customary friendly smile looked rather sad from this angle. Eren felt a pang of shame and went to pick up the poor bear - after all, the toy had never done anything mean to him. He hugged it tight to his chest, not caring that it smelled of dust and made him want to sneeze, and resisted the childish urge to cry.

A faint buzzing caught his attention. Eren raised his head and glanced around, finally focussing on the tall window with its padded window seat where a fuzzy bumblebee, which had somehow managed to get itself trapped in the house, was bouncing fruitlessly against the panes of glass. A brief urge arose to squash the insect beneath his thumb - earlier it would have brought him much satisfaction - but since then most of his anger had been taken out upon the poor abused bear, so instead Eren wandered over and knelt on the window seat to see if he could somehow open the window and let the bee out.

His fingers had only just found the latch when something beyond the glass caught his eye. The window overlooked the tall topiary hedges and, nestled among them, Eren could just see the fountain which Marco had been working on earlier. The gardener’s son was back now, though, circling the basin with his hands on his hips. After a couple more circuits he seemed to come to some sort of internal decision for he nodded once to himself then bent down and began to unlace his work boots and roll up his trouser legs. Did he really intend to wade into the fountain to try to fix it?

Another figure appeared from amongst the hedges, walking casually towards Marco. Eren recognised the cream suit and realised it was Jean. He must have called out in greeting for abruptly Marco snapped up straight, as if he were a soldier standing to attention, and stood very still. Even from his vantage point Eren could tell that the freckled boy was flustered, there was something about the rising colour in his cheeks which seemed to have nothing to do with he heat of the day. Jean stood at a respectful distance away, talking nonchalantly with his hands in his pockets, and Marco…Marco was still standing so unnaturally rigid, only now there seemed to be a strange kind of tension about his shoulders, as though his body wanted very much to sway forward but a part of him was straining very hard not to allow this to happen.

Jean gestured to the fountain and Marco, who up until then had not said a word, began to speak. He had a habit of talking with his hands, Eren realised, pointing to the basin and the statue, miming how the water should be flowing compared to how it currently was. Jean stood nearby and nodded politely, then walked forward to lean over the basin and stare into the murky water. After a while he said something and pointed somewhere deep within the basin. Marco shook his head and pointed instead to the fountain’s mouth. Now Jean shook his head, pointed again within the fountain with obvious insistency. The pair stared at each other, sharing a look which seemed to stretch for an eternity, and then Marco began talking and gesticulating again.

Jean stepped smartly away from the edge of the fountain and shucked out of his jacket, let it fall to the floor. Marco’s hands froze in midair for a moment and then fell, Jean was now undoing the buttons on his shirt with obvious ferocity; that too was dropped to the floor, exposing a pale but well-formed torso. The tension returned to Marco’s body again when Jean toed off his shoes and pushed his trousers down past his thighs until they pooled at his ankles. Clad only in his underwear he then stepped up onto the rim of the basin where Eren had sat not two hours before. Marco raised a hand as if to stop him but was too late, for Jean was already pinching his nose and submerging himself with an obvious shudder - down, down until the crown of his head disappeared beneath the grey-green water.

Ripples spread across the surface of the water and then stilled. Marco stood alone with the pile of discarded clothes. Eren leaned closer until his forehead bumped against the cool glass. And then Jean’s head broke the surface.

He clambered out of the fountain and began to dress again, wrenching his trousers up forcefully and struggling a little with his thin cotton shirt where it clung to the wet skin of his arms. Marco stood with his head turned away, his fists clenched tightly. Jean simply picked up his shoes and jacket and thrust them under his arm as he took off towards the house, just barely brushing Marco’s shoulder as he passed him.

Eren turned and flopped down to sit on the window seat with his back against the glass. He stared unseeingly at the nursery before him, felt a strange feeling rising in his chest. He glanced back over his shoulder and saw that Marco was now leaning over the fountain’s edge, reaching for something in the water. Then the freckled boy straightened and walked away in the opposite direction to Jean, disappeared amongst the hedges.

The bee was still buzzing frantically next to Eren’s ear. In a sudden spate of spitefulness, he trapped it between his thumb and the windowpane, pressed down hard until he felt its little body crack beneath his nail.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this idea in my head for ages so today I finally decided to take the plunge and write and post the preface. It probably won't turn out very good as I'm mostly just making this up as I go along, but I do sort of have a general outline of where I'd like this to go and of the mood/tone of the story. Obviously it goes without saying that there will be spoilers for the storyline of Atonement. This fic is based more on the film directed by Joe Wright than the original novel by Ian McEwan and I will admit freely right here and now that I intend to borrow some dialogue from the film itself. I don't mean any harm and hope that no one takes offence, but the lines I have in mind are just so powerful and beautiful I couldn't imagine writing this story without them (really, they're probably what inspired this whole fic in the first place)! To be quite honest, I'm mostly using this fic as an exercise to explore whether or not I can successfully write a Jean/Marco fic based on one of my favourite stories/films ever.


End file.
